Matt Stuff

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE ON THE ELEVATOR... The morning was moving slow at the big gay front desk. So, I decided to run up some paperwork to another doctor's office on one of the higher floors. I work in a rather tall building to San Francisco standards.

There was a loud conversation going on in the elevator as I walked in. Two cute men. One tall, lanky and about as white as a person can get. The other was short, curved and Asian. The tall guy was gesturing with his hands and essentially yelling at his friend --- who stood sort of smiling and nodding his head. There was a look of panic and confusion in the eyes of the short man.

As soon as I got back to my desk I pulled out my handy Hello Kitty memo pad and recorded what I had heard --- and, what had happened. This was definitely a case of a language barrier on the rise.

"...I am trying to tell you that it is just hard for me! Do you understand what I am saying?!?!?!?"

Short man just looks confused but sort of happy. He nods.

"Look. Try not to take it so badly. It is just it has been a long time since I shared my home and bed with anyone. I am really into you but it is just odd to have a warm body holding on to mine after so many years of being alone!"

Short man nods. I try not to look at them, but it is hard to not watch this odd situation unfold to my right as we go up and up. The tall man is really yelling now.

"IT IS HARD TO SHARE A BED! I LIKE YOU! BUT IT IS STRANGE TO SLEEP WITH SOMEONE AFTER SO MANY YEARS OF BEING ALONE."

11 Comments:

The language of love. It doesn't tell all, does it? But y'know, I find these encounters with men whose native language is English 100% confusing when the possibility of love comes into play. I can't imagine, then, having the double barrier of linguistic misunderstanding.

This reminds me of a thing I saw on TBS... this guy walks around dumpster picking , picks up scraps of paper off the street etc., and compiles all the random notes and stolen bits of writing and makes a magazine from them. You could so totally do that! (PS: The language barrier is only one problem; plenty of people speak the same damn language and still can't manage to sort it out -)

Crabcake -- I don't know. I seem to just walk into "oddness" ...Seems like it has been that way all my life. Not sure that one can call it interesting, but it ain't dull. LOL!

Karl -- yep!

Ing! I'm here! ...well, I didn't get home till about 8:30. But, I'm here now and about to go to bed! Milly canceled on me! But, it turned out to be a long evening at work. I will have to tell you about it later! LOL! 80% clean! Wow, Ingrid! You're almost there! You weren't working tonight?!?!?